The Department of Records and Information Services to digitalize 30.000 NYPD photos

The New York Times reports that, starting this July, the NYC Department of Records and Information Services is going to digitalize another 30,000 photos and negatives, all taken between 1914 and 1975 by forensics and police photographers of the NYPD. They will be made available to the public on the website of the New York City Municipal Archives. For us fans of the legendary New York press photographer Arthur ‘Weegee’ Fellig and his film-noir-like view of New York, this should be reason enough to add the simple-looking website to our bookmarks. 😉

Like Weegee’s photos, many of these images show aspects of the human existence which could hardly be any darker. In a direct comparison between this brutal side of reality and crime fiction like ‘CSI’, it is the fiction that feels more genuine and positively harmless.

Below I have added some of the shots, just so you know what to expect in the folder “NYPD and Criminal Prosecution”. However, please be advised that the photos in the sub-folder “Murder” are, as the title might lead you to suspect, not for the fainthearted. 😉